‘We're not arms dealers, we look after children. But Santander debanked us'
Have you been debanked? Email money@telegraph.co.uk.
For 30 years, Mark Stricklin has looked after thousands of children in his business acting as a guardian for overseas students at British boarding schools.
The family-run firm, Crown Guardians, which is based in Bath, charges students' parents, who live abroad, £1,000 a year for the service.
But in October last year, his business accounts and credit card were suddenly frozen without warning. His bank, Santander, enclosed a cheque for more than £81,000 – the contents of his account – and demanded that the £458.67 owed on the credit card was settled within 60 days.
Mr Striklin believes he is a victim of 'debanking'.
The 57-year-old told The Telegraph: 'They froze everything. We couldn't receive payments, we couldn't make payments. All of our working capital was in our business account.
'Our 30-year-old family business was shut down at the flick of a switch.'
Mr Striklin is among an estimated half a million customers who were debanked last year. Worrying figures exposed by The Telegraph found that in 2024, 408,000 bank accounts were closed for 'financial crime' reasons, up from 45,091 in 2016-2017.
Financial institutions are allowed to close accounts for commercial reasons, and if they suspect criminal activity. There is no legal right to a bank account in the UK, unlike in countries such as France and Belgium.
The problem with debanking came to national prominence after Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, had his account with private bank Coutts stripped from him for what he claimed were 'ideological' reasons.
Dame Alison Rose, former chief executive of NatWest, which owns Coutts, was forced to step down after admitting briefing a BBC journalist with incorrect information.
Last week, Mr Farage said that he had settled with NatWest for an undisclosed sum. Before the settlement, he told The Telegraph: 'The last government promised me there would be changes, but nothing happened.'
Mr Stricklin had opened the accounts in 2016. But his accounts were suspended for a month before the bank told him their final decision.
A letter from Santander said: 'We regularly review our customers' accounts and need to let you know that unfortunately we can't offer you banking facilities any more.'
It continued: 'Unfortunately, we are not able to give you further information about how we have made our decision.'
The suspension of his account meant that he couldn't receive or send payments, effectively closing his business for weeks.
He said: 'I had brand new clients sending us payments, and they were being bounced back.
'We couldn't pay our drivers, and we couldn't pay our host families. We couldn't give kids pocket money, we couldn't top-up their mobile phones. It was the worst nightmare of anything I've ever been through.
'Nothing has made me feel as physically sick as that did.'
Initially, Mr Stricklin was told that his accounts had been suspended pending investigation, but Santander then decided to close them permanently.
The bank wouldn't tell the business why – despite him spending more than 20 hours on the phone.
He said: 'We're not manufacturing arms or anything, we look after children. That's all we ever do. If we did something wrong, I'd like to know how to not do something wrong in the future.'
The business has now opened four new bank accounts, to mitigate the risk of something similar happening again. Mr Stricklin said: 'I have no idea why it happened. I have no idea. I have absolutely no confidence that it couldn't happen again tomorrow.'
The business owner claimed that he had struggled to make a formal complaint, something he must do before he can refer his case to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).
After The Telegraph contacted the bank on his behalf, a senior complaints manager contacted Mr Stricklin to discuss his complaint.
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